Are Poets Born Not Made?

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Originally Posted by stuntpickle

It's unfortunate that you cut the quote off where you did since the very following sentence expresses something very different from what everyone else has been saying. My point was that, yes, artists should acquaint themselves with their predecessors, but they should acquaint themselves with more culturally relevant predecessors. You know, someone who has lived in the last century--sort of like how you guys relate to music. I wasn't ranting about the music. I think everyone's statements here about music are more honest than their statements about literature, which I find to be largely affected.

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Yeats, Eliot, Neruda, Auden (all of which mentioned by your pal Moprheus, no less), Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens, Bukowski is mentioned who knows how many times, Tennyson, Maya Angelou, Morgenstern, Olson, Vallejo, Carson, and, well, I quit scanning posts after page four. All of those authors have been mentioned, most in the sense that they should be admired, studied, or are part of the canon.

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And by "back-patting" I meant giving each other pats on the back.

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I meant examples, as you know.

Okay, Stunt, I got it. Thanks.

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Originally Posted by miyako73

Mutatis, read what he wrote:

"Everyone has inborn moods, sensitivities, and emotions; not everyone can write like Milton, Keats, Heaney, etc."

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He also wrote this. He obviously doesn't think everyone has the same emotions:

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No two individual personalities are completely unalike, either, so I still don't get your point. Everyone has SOME moods, sensitivities, and emotions, and not everyone can write as well as everyone else. As someone in another thread said, people are pretty much people wherever you go. You can't chalk up their talent as being due to their "unique moods, sensitivities and emotions," in which case why can two writers express the same mood and emotion and one be better at it?

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He's emphasizing that we all feel emotions, many times the same emotions (emotions like love, anger, hate are not unique) nothing more. He is saying that if everyone feels emotion, there must be more that goes into writing poetry than feeling emotion. That's all his point was. It was obvious.

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Originally Posted by My2cents

but what does that mean ultimately? That you understand the value of taking directions? Which in turn would mean that you're just one of the guys, a normal fella like everyone else. Nothing wrong with that. But that's not art. That's being a normal guy, well respected, humble--being someone no one could possibly hate. It's what 99% of humanity aspires to.

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Amen.

People in the present often judge people from the past poorly. They marvel at how uniformly idiotic past persons seem. How could everyone be so stupid, so myopic, so oblivious, so agreeably monstrous? they ask. Yet it never occurs to them how uniformly well they get along with everyone in their own time.

"When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him."

--Jonathan Swift

I get the impression that literary theory is a world apart from those that write poetry. How one applies literary theory in any meaningful way is the full responsibility of the person waving the flashy piece of paper around an online forum. One would certainly hope that all that theory actually gets proactively applied, to enrich the lives of others and doesn't become a pissing contest between like minds or used against those who chose a different path.

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Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandis

He also wrote this. He obviously doesn't think everyone has the same emotions:


He's emphasizing that we all feel emotions, many times the same emotions (emotions like love, anger, hate are not unique) nothing more. He is saying that if everyone feels emotion, there must be more that goes into writing poetry than feeling emotion. That's all his point was. It was obvious.

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And you think he is right? Emotion is a broad whole that you cannot dissect into specific parts. Maybe you hate something I love and vice versa, do you think it's the same kind of hate? C'mon, neuroscientists have been telling us that personality like emotion is a web of interconnections, and that makes every human being unique.

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Originally Posted by miyako73

And you think he is right? Emotion is a broad whole that you cannot dissect into specific parts. Maybe you hate something I love and vice versa, do you think it's the same kind of hate? C'mon, neuroscientists have been telling us that personality like emotion is a web of interconnections.

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I think he is right in his position that emotion isn't, nor can be, the only factor that creates good poetry.

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Originally Posted by Delta40

I get the impression that literary theory is a world apart from those that write poetry. How one applies literary theory in any meaningful way is the full responsibility of the person waving the flashy piece of paper around an online forum. One would certainly hope that all that theory actually gets proactively applied, to enrich the lives of others and doesn't become a pissing contest between like minds or used against those who chose a different path.

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So learning for learning's sake isn't enough of a reason to learn?

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Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandis

So learning for learning's sake isn't enough of a reason to learn?

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That isn't what I said Mutatis but you're welcome to apply whatever meaning you like to comments I make.

Mutatis, I give up... to your control. I'm weak. hehehe

Does any of it matter, for Christ sake! Whether you're made or born with a poet's halo over your head. Does it really matter? I like some poetry that people think is crap. And I like some music that people think is crap. So what? I also hate some poetry that people think is brilliant. Same goes for music. So what? Let the world argue over the merits of the canon. As for I, I'm just gonna kick back and enjoy what I like.

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Originally Posted by Delta40

That isn't what I said Mutatis but you're welcome to apply whatever meaning you like to comments I make.

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I can only comment on meanings I perceive from posts; if I perceived wrong, I'm sorry--it's not the first time I have, nor will it be the last. You seemed to give the impression that anyone studying literary theory should be using that knowledge for something ("One would certainly hope that all that theory actually gets proactively applied, to enrich the lives of others").

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Originally Posted by miyako73

Mutatis, I give up... to your control. I'm weak. hehehe

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YES!

Yeah, so I'm not sure if this topic itself is still open for unbiased discussion, but I'd like to contribute.

So, the questions are poets born, not made?

Well, I would say there are many ways to approach this. I've been writing for a majority of my high school life. If you skip forward two years(that being six years in total), I can safely say that poets are both born and made. It just depends on who you ask and what you personally believe. The way I look at it is simply, that if you have the heart and passion, you can become a poet. There isn't any detour around the matter. It simply relies on the heart and passion. I know we can all agree to this, no?

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Originally Posted by The Artist

Yeah, so I'm not sure if this topic itself is still open for unbiased discussion, but I'd like to contribute.

So, the questions are poets born, not made?

Well, I would say there are many ways to approach this. I've been writing for a majority of my high school life. If you skip forward two years(that being six years in total), I can safely say that poets are both born and made. It just depends on who you ask and what you personally believe. The way I look at it is simply, that if you have the heart and passion, you can become a poet. There isn't any detour around the matter. It simply relies on the heart and passion. I know we can all agree to this, no?

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Welcome aboard Artist! And welcome to the fire!

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Originally Posted by Delta40

I get the impression that literary theory is a world apart from those that write poetry. How one applies literary theory in any meaningful way is the full responsibility of the person waving the flashy piece of paper around an online forum. One would certainly hope that all that theory actually gets proactively applied, to enrich the lives of others and doesn't become a pissing contest between like minds or used against those who chose a different path.

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If you think literary theory and writing are that different, it could only be because you're paying attention. For 2,000 years literary theory was aesthetic theory, largely concerned with the agreement of constituent parts in the service of beauty. Then English professors got jealous of all the philosophers and scientists, with all their jargon and obese ideas, so the English professors just started aping them until everyone forgot why they were there in the first place.

Screw Shakespeare; let's read Derrida!

Derrida, Foucault, Baudelaire, Deleuze, Guatari, and Lyotard once ruined my passionate attempt in creative nonfiction. Since then, I have not regained my lost voice back. Deleuze and Guatari's rhizomatic scheme left me scattered- my thoughts and how my brain works. The rabid postmodernist among them pushed me to victimhood. They shattered me emotionally. There are moments now when everything to me is a purgatory of limbo, dilemma, and grey.